Sunday 26 July 2009
Close to 1000 people pulled into the Bay of Plenty lawns here today to watch the clash of the egos in the opening movie of the Wavescapes Surf Film Festival, presented by the Save Our Seas Foundation.
A receding southwesterly buster and a few clouds in the sky were the only signs of a cold front that had swept through for two days preceding the event, which forms part of the Durban International Film Festival, South Africas's biggest and best. All afternoon, the wind continued to ease, giving relief to members of the technical team from Wavescape and Ocean Minded, who sponsored the evening.
Locals were out in force despite the cool conditions. Judging by the parkas, beanies, and even core polar gear, one could have been at a jorl on a floating ice floe drifting off Greenland.
As it is every year, the Cape Town-based Wavescape ous were stoked after scoring fun surf, and were licking their lips at the thought of cranking 6' lines at a rural pointbreak on the dawnie the next day. The surfcast was spot on. They scored deep-blue pits, but had to work hard after scary suckdowns, breathless beatings and brutal paddle marathons.
Back to the past present tense, Chris Mason and Tim Starke from Ocean Minded gave away kiff prizes, including tees, hats and slops from Ocean Minded, as well as a board cover and other stuff from True Blue Surf Travel to a bunch of stoked groms who had to answer a few questions around environmental awareness and surfing. The message around conserving our oceans and beaches was taken to heart by the audience, and as the crowds dwindled, the area was cleaner than it had been before the movie.
Speaking of which, most seemed to enjoy the amped up, hyper competitive expression of hoo-ha endemic to the cut-throat world of competitive surfing. Fly in the Champagne was true to that stereotype. Made by Irons Bros Productions, it documents the rivalry between Andy and Kelly. Crazy hoot-worthy footage of perfect waves and breath-burst barrel rides runs concurrent to the coldly jealous world of two big ego bubbles bouncing around in a vast, vacuous world of consumer adulaton.
Both admit to being tossers at times in their careers, and tantalising tidbits of the true grit of their inner hatred are partially exposed - an intriguing insight into a limited number of the "whys" and "whens" in their famous rivalry. One senses, though, that a lot is left untold.
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